A Learning and Development Blog

Monthly Archives: September 2012

It’s been clear for some time now that organisations are moving increasingly towards implementing e-learning to improve efficiency in delivering training. Whether the e-learning they’re considering is the most appropriate or only solution is a whole different story.

However, let’s imagine that you’ve carried out an in-depth analysis looking closely at the needs and experiences of your audience, established the the performance need, made sure there’s clear link to organisational goals and considered all possible options. You’ve come to the conclusion that the type of e-learning appropriate, whether wholly or as part of a blend, is the self-study interactive tutorial.

OK, so now you’re confident in your decision, now you have to decide how this should be done. If you’ve ruled out going externally and buying off the shelf, the alternative is to produce yourself in-house.

But what if you’re new to all this stuff? Well you could go on a course! But what if this isn’t an option – where do you start? There’s so much information and advice out there you can feel overwhelmed so I thought I’d get some useful resources together which might help in your quest for creating the holy grail of e-learning – that which engages and produces effective results.

Firstly, here are just a small selection of my own blog posts to start you thinking:

The great thing about the eLearning community is everyone loves to share. Here are some excellent resources from some of the greats in the e-learning field (and I mean only some – there are many more but these are good to get you started):

I’ve often said that PowerPoint is your secret weapon when creating eLearning tutorials so my advice is to learn all you can about how to use its graphics as in depth as you can. Oh… and toss the template. By that, I mean, always use a blank slide so you’re not constrained by any PowerPoint’s standard, heavy bulleted slides. For ideas on how you can be creative with PowerPoint, check out Articulate’s Rapid eLearning Blog. No matter what authoring tool you have, the Rapid eLearning Blog will give you handy tips and ideas.

You need to balance effective learning with effective visuals when designing elearning and in the absence of a graphic design qualification here are some good resources. These aren’t elearning based but some ideas can be applied to elearning screens:

Well, I think that’s enough to get you all starting to think about what makes good elearning tutorials. As I said, there’s so much more out there but these are certainly my favourite and will be more than enough for you at the beginning.

So go on – give it a go. As the saying goes… it’s easier to eat the elephant one bite at a time. Give yourself small, achievable goals and practise. Join and participate in communities like Articulate’s ‘e-Learning Heroes‘ community where you can share some of your ideas and prototypes to get feedback from others in the community. I’d also recommend joining the eLearning Network, a UK organisation ‘run by the eLearning community for the eLearning community’ sharing best practice.

But just to leave you with a thought…. it’s all very well knowing where to go for help and advice but to put some great eLearning out there in your organisations you’ll need backing and support. Not only from your colleagues but from your managers. Clive Shepherd briefly covers this in his post ‘Tools, talent, training and, above all, time‘ and my follow-up post ‘Dream the impossible e-dream‘.